CATF 2020 Report: a Year of Global Impact | 2 SECTION 01 Introduction

2020: A Year of Global Impact Table of Contents

01 INTRODUCTION...... 3

02 OVERVIEW...... 7

03 OUR WORK & FOCUS...... 13 Energy Systems Modeling...... 14 Policy Advocacy...... 17 Power Plants...... 21 Super Pollutants...... 24 Carbon Capture and Storage...... 28 Advanced Nuclear Energy...... 31 Bioenergy...... 35 Zero-Carbon Fuels...... 37 Advanced Energy Technology...... 39

04 AT A GLANCE...... 43 Fundraising...... 44 Endorsements and Partners...... 45 CATF in the News...... 46 Board of Directors...... 47 CATF Experts...... 48

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 2 SECTION 01 Introduction

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 3 01 – INTRODUCTION Letter from Armond Success Prepares Us for the Challenges of the Next Twenty-Five Years

In 1996, Clean Air Task Force was by spurring international markets at the same time it doubles in size— a band of seven staffers formed to to create low-cost hydrogen; is a huge lift that will take decades. achieve a specific goal: reducing controlling natural gas emissions from The new political alignment in carbon emissions from United States production sites across the globe— Washington will help, but we don’t power plants. We did this by pushing from Texas to Russia to the Mideast; take anything for granted. We need new federal air quality regulations pushing the new Biden Administration durable policies that will withstand that would cut power plant air to better regulate fossil-fuel power inevitable political cycles—and then pollution and carbon. At the time, our plants and methane sources in the there is the rest of the world, much of methods and scope were traditional. oil and gas industry; pressing to it energy starved and 80% dependent We created and funded ground convert global marine shipping from on fossil fuel. campaigns in 20 key states, built diesel to carbon- free ammonia; a formidable litigation machine, demonstrating and deploying Our progress has been achieved in and commissioned bookshelves of advanced carbon capture for heavy collaboration and with the support of analyses from some of the nation’s industry and electricity generation; thousands of colleagues in the US and leading universities and research and commercializing advanced around the world, as well as major consultancies. And we worked to put nuclear power and fusion. investment from committed funders in place regulations that are saving and donors who recognize that big tens of thousands of lives, while But in many ways, CATF’s DNA is change can’t happen overnight. helping to retire a third of the nation’s the same as when we started. coal plants. We define climate and air pollution To manage our planet’s climate, problems at their root cause. we must effectively eliminate Nearly 25 years on, CATF has become We look for the biggest levers greenhouse emissions. Climate an international organization of 40 of change. We stay grounded in models suggest that we have, at experts with offices in the US and facts. We look for realistic, scalable most, three decades to do so— Europe, and activities in Canada, solutions. We build coalitions not about the same number of years China, the Mid-East and North just with like-minded advocates but since CATF’s founding. Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, and Latin also explore cooperative pathways America as well as other countries with industries that are willing That’s not impossible. But it will take and regions. We collaborate with a to change. We are not afraid to everything we’ve got today, and more. wide range of global think tanks and challenge conventional wisdom CATF looks forward to keeping you researchers, as well as governments, about technologies or policies. informed on the journey to zero. technology companies, and investors. And we are relentless. Our scope now extends to nearly everything related to climate and We know that reshaping the $25 energy. Some of our key initiatives: trillion global energy system to Armond Cohen displacing carbon-emitting fuels eliminate carbon and methane— Executive Director

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 4 01 – INTRODUCTION Our Global Footprint

Clean Air Task Force works across the globe, focusing on regions and countries in which we can most effectively promote critical path advances in technologies, programs, and policies that address climate destabilization, as well as on areas that pose the greatest threat to climate stability.

In 2020, CATF’s work and partnerships spanned across every continent and show that our focused efforts, unique approach, and expanded network of experts can lead to a broader impact in the quest for sustainable solutions.

CATF Areas of Focus CATF Staff and Experts

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 5 01 – INTRODUCTION

I’ve worked for over 40 years in all facets of the energy industry—in all sectors: for profit, non-profit and as a government official, as well as in all sorts of roles: CEO, board member, management consultant, and exploration geologist. In all my work I have come to appreciate that getting the facts, understanding their implications and appreciating what has and has not worked makes all the difference in achieving great outcomes. CATF is and has been an unparalleled font of facts, insights and understanding about our global energy and climate challenges. I am honored to serve along with my board colleagues in CATF’s important work—especially now, when our progress for creating a better global energy and climate future has never been more crucial for ourselves and the generations to come.

Phil Giudice CATF Board of Directors

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 6 SECTION 02 Overview

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 7 02 – OVERVIEW The Push and Pull of Climate Transformation...

CATF works at the frontier of change—the event horizon, if you will—crafting strategies that advance the boundaries of what is possible. And we move quickly—there is no time to spare. One of our strengths is that CATF puts into practice an important insight: given the need to cut projected worldwide greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by mid-century to protect our climate, we must push into the commercial marketplace innovative technologies capable of achieving a zero-carbon future. At the same time, we must pull hard right now on all available regulatory policies and instruments. Only then can we hope to arrive at our destination. This is the essential push and pull that will maneuver into place a long-term, deep-rooted, and successful climate policy.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 8 Where We Push Where We Pull

• Advanced Nuclear Energy: CATF aims to make • Zero Emissions for the Power Sector: nuclear energy a viable option for decarbonizing CATF works to ensure the adoption of federal the global energy system at needed scale and speed. emission standards on all US fossil power plants that We catalyze private sector and government activity will, through legislation and regulation, zero out power to lower the cost and deployment timeline of both sector carbon emissions by 2050. A major focus here advanced fission energy and, potentially, is our groundbreaking work on federal and state commercial fusion. Clean Energy Standards, which we’ve added to our traditional administrative advocacy and high-impact • Decarbonized Fossil Energy: CATF’s efforts here litigation aimed at achieving enduring climate benefits. focus on carbon capture and storage, the process of collecting waste CO2 from power plants, refineries, • Federal and State Climate Policy: The main focus factories, and even directly from the air—then here is to push states and, ultimately, the federal injecting it deep into the earth for safe, permanent government to adopt coherent, far-reaching, and sequestration. We are developing and advocating for effective climate policies. These include federal policies that will make carbon capture globally cost economy-wide and sector-specific policies (such competitive, particularly in the massive coal-fired as a Clean Energy Standard for the power sector or infrastructure of India, China, and Southeast Asia. a Zero-Carbon Fuel Standard for transportation), federal clean energy technology incentives (tax and • Zero-Carbon Fuels: Recognizing that a large direct subsidies), as well as broadened state efforts segment of world energy demand comes from mobile to enact or enable clean energy policies open to or hard-to-electrify devices—cars, trucks, ships, trains, all technologies that provide zero-carbon power— airplanes, and certain industrial operations—we are including advanced nuclear, carbon capture and rapidly expanding our research into two non-electric, sequestration, and advanced geothermal. zero-carbon energy sources that hold great promise— hydrogen and ammonia. At the same time, we are • Super Pollutants: In the US and internationally, examining ways that zero-carbon energy technologies CATF advocates for major reductions in so-called like advanced nuclear energy and carbon capture super pollutants, particularly methane and black can create a platform for the massive fabrication carbon, which possess inordinate capacity to sabotage of these versatile fuels. And we are catalyzing the our climate. We support scientific research, promote growth of commercial networks to move them from policy initiatives, encourage the development of production sites to distribution points. To accelerate financial incentives, and champion and defend the process, we promote policy change and support programs that can dramatically reduce emissions commercial coalitions. of these “super spreaders” of climate disruption. Our work takes us to Latin America, Africa, the • Advanced Energy Technologies: We delve deeply European Union, and China. into the science and the industrial alignments needed to demonstrate and bring to commercial fruition • Bioenergy: Identifying and promoting measures to energy sources that, while now in nascent stages, maximize the climate benefits arising from thoughtful could, if successful, play a major role in eliminating land use practices—from carefully targeted rollout carbon fuel by the 2050s. These include superhot of bioenergy, to smarter and more comprehensive rock geothermal, which would tap into the endless forest management. Right now, our efforts center on heat of the earth’s upper crust, and nuclear fusion, convincing the US to relinquish the view that progress a technology that has just started to attract major requires support for the corn and soy plantations of private investment. international agribusiness.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 9 Where We Apply the Secret Sauce

• Energy Systems Analysis: To plan for a global low-carbon future, it is essential to apply analytic tools to understand what’s needed for an affordable zero-carbon energy system—including the risks and opportunities associated with promising pathways, and their management during transitional periods. This big-picture task, conducted with the help of academic and industry experts, as well as a network of civil society analysts, informs all of CATF’s initiatives. It tells us what policies can work and where we should apply our resources—where to push, and where to pull.

• Legal Evaluation and Intervention: Our team of six attorneys provides advice—strategic and tactical, legal and regulatory—across the organization. In addition, we litigate clean power cases in US courts on behalf of other non- profits, from national groups like the American Lung Association, to regional and local organizations. The legal team works on statutory language and comments on proposed regulations. We analyze the legal landscape for everything from methane regulation, to the licensing of fusion generators and the operation of a tax credit to stimulate the commercialization of carbon-capture technologies.

• Communications and Education: CATF’s advocates and consultants frequently publish reports and peer-reviewed articles of significant depth on key aspects of our work, and participate each year, often as organizers, in hundreds of bilateral briefings, symposiums, technical seminars, workshops, and expert roundtables in the US and across the globe. We also create and host a number of interactive websites allowing users to see the local impacts of air pollution in their communities.

We have been consistently impressed by the quality of the research that Clean Air Task Force produces, finding it to be well-reasoned and even-handed. Their team is widely respected among the various climate experts, academics and activists that we have spoken to.

Founders Pledge: Charity Reports

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 10 02 – OVERVIEW CATF: Designed to Confront the Climate Challenge Head On

The graphics on this page and the next tell the story and it’s not a pleasant one: we live in a world almost totally dependent on unscrubbed fossil fuels—on carbon—and that world is approaching thresholds of such potentially profound climate disruption that political, economic, and social catastrophe is all but certain.

Indeed, 2020 looks as though it was just about the hottest year on record. The one remaining way to blunt the consequence of this is rapid and drastic reduction of our carbon diet. And we will need to do that over the next three to four decades—a short window no wider than the period that started with the fall of the Soviet Union and ends today.

Projected Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Source: UNEP, Emissions Gap Report (2019), p. 26

No new climate policies after 2005 60 Solely current policies implemented Range of national committments under 2016 50 Paris Climate Agreement 2°C range

Modelled reduction paths 40 to maintain two-thirds chance of limiting global 1.8°C range temperature increase to these levels over time 1.5°C range 30 0 2-e) (GtC of C0 2 equivalent tonnes Billion metric

20 2015 2025 2020 2030

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 11 In its 25 years, Clean Air Task Force has increasingly become focused on climate destabilization and what must happen now to avoid this slow-motion menace. Our strategy is unusual, sometimes contrarian, and always focused on the element we have in shortest supply: time. So put, our strategy depends on detailed, fact-based analysis—about technologies, about economics, and about the political state of play. Put simply, we focus on what will work.

A decade of expert analysis as well as direct involvement in the venues where ideas germinate and decisions get made has fully convinced us that, in addition to deployment of renewable forms of energy that have reached cost competitiveness, we can control carbon and reduce the risk of failure only by developing a robust suite of zero-carbon options. These include advanced iterations of large-scale, existing technologies (nuclear fission, for example), continued pressure to eliminate the most virulent pollution (e.g., from dirty coal plants, and oil and gas operations), and the capture and permanent sequestration of CO2. We also need to plan for mid-century and beyond. That’s why we’re also generating interest and momentum in developing nuclear fusion and deep hotrock geothermal—either of which could address the planet’s entire energy needs on its own (although, if proven, would likely be part of a portfolio of options). And, in addition to driving carbon from the power grid, we need to facilitate transition to zero-carbon fuels, the energy-dense gases and liquids capable of propelling much of our massive and growing transportation system.

That is the story we tell on the pages that follow. It’s a story of a “venture capital” approach to advocacy (making multiple bets on potential big payoffs) and it’s the story of how we build durable coalitions of advocates, innovators, and technicians who remain rooted to a solid groundwork of fact—but still dream big.

Because big challenges demand big solutions.

World Energy Consumption Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy (2018), p. 10

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5,000 Million tonnes oil equivalent Million tonnes 4,000

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0 2011 2017 1997 2012 2015 2013 2018 1995 1993 2014 1998 2016 1994 1996 1999 2001 2010 2007 2002 2005 2003 2008 2004 2006 2009 2000

Coal Hydroelectricity Natural Gas Renewables Nuclear Energy Oil

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 12 SECTION 03 Our Work & Focus

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 13 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Energy Systems Modeling Finding Resilient Pathways to a Clean Energy World

Every part of the Clean Air Task Force advocacy made a strong head start, continue to gather and analyze program—whether fission, superhot geothermal, powerful data, and have teamed up with some of the bioenergy, carbon capture, hydrogen and ammonia planet’s best thinkers and analysts. fuels, legal tools, or the advanced policy initiatives that will make them happen—is bound together by a This work has proceeded in four overlapping phases. single vision: to remove all carbon, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions from the global energy In the first phase, we focused on the question of what system by mid-century. combination of zero-carbon energy sources would give us the greatest chance of achieving an affordable All of our work in pursuit of this vision begins with zero-carbon power grid. With dropping prices of wind research and analysis. With models and other analytic and solar energy and, more recently, of energy storage, techniques, we draw on the power of logical inquiry, some argue that a 100% renewable energy power grid scenario development, and quantitative stress testing could achieve a zero-carbon goal quickly. In 2012, we to examine this challenge in a manner precise enough tested this hypothesis by gathering meteorological and to guide key objectives, actions, and results over the renewable energy performance data from Germany, arc of the next half century. To ask what’s needed to the nation thought to be the most advanced in making totally decarbonize the entire world energy system, all the transition to a low-carbon system. What we found of it, by mid-century is highly ambitious. Luckily, we’ve surprised us.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 14 Considering the Cost of Power Failure assuming that the last 20% "can be figured out later." By then, we found, no cost-effective solution to plug Though wind and solar could in theory provide nearly seasonal gaps would exist; all options would entail high all of Germany’s electric power, that nation, like the rest capital cost, while operating only seasonally. The likely of the Northern Hemisphere, experiences intervals of result: a decarbonization “dead end.” little wind and sun (“dunkelflaute” or the dark doldrums), often lasting weeks or months. To compensate for this Adding depth to this core insight, CATF’s workshop seasonal variation, you would need wind and solar spawned dozens of subsequent studies by academic capacity double or triple the size of peak electricity and industrial experts. We also commissioned analyses demand, or you’d be forced to install massive but little- looking at the power systems in the Midwest, New York, used storage equal to the size of the generation system Arizona, Pennsylvania, and many other US states (as well itself (or perhaps a combination of these). For Germany, a as India) and found similar results. We presented these nation already facing some of the world’s highest electric widely, which helped lead to the enactment of clean rates, this strategy would double or triple the price of energy standards in seven states friendly to a broad electric power. In contrast, a more balanced combination range of zero-carbon technologies, as well as similar of renewable energy and zero-carbon, always-available pledges from utilities that together cover roughly half generation—such as gas with carbon capture and of US electric sales. (Here, you can learn more about storage, or nuclear (even at relatively high cost)—would our state and regional decarbonization commitments.) deliver a zero-carbon power grid at far lower cost. Then, with colleagues at the Environmental Defense Fund, CATF commissioned teams at Stanford, Princeton, To further test this conclusion, in 2015 CATF brought and the respected consulting firm E3 to model California together international researchers for a two-day clean energy pathways. That 18-month study confirmed workshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts to compare our the wisdom of keeping all zero-carbon options on conclusions with other teams’ findings. One of the key the table. insights of that workshop was that it is risky to build four- fifths of a system out of variable energy sources, while

California: CATF Analysis Shows the Need for Always-Available, Zero-Carbon Power

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0% 50% 100% Smoothed Daily Renewable Generation (MW) or More

This “heat map” produced by CATF illustrates why zero-carbon, always-available power sources are helpful. Here, average hourly electric demand in California (thick black line) is mapped against supply from a 100% renewable grid consisting of wind and solar energy (dotted line). Although the state has surplus power in summer, it faces shortages in fall and winter (the red and orange hours). Filling these gaps requires an electric system massive enough to meet more than double existing peak demand, backed by expensive storage. Having always-on, zero-carbon power would reduce costs, as well as the space required for generation.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 15 Looking at the Landscape Energy Modeling 2.0 More recently, our analysis has moved into a A fourth phase, meta-analysis, gets to the core of second phase. There, we will examine the physical the energy transition puzzle. Here, we will provide requirements of various zero-carbon options, a dispassionate overview using analytic tools and including an all-renewables strategy. We are engaging frameworks that identify both common and differential sophisticated GIS tools to examine siting and build-out risks associated with each zero-carbon pathway— of a variety of zero-carbon grid systems, looking at a e.g., cost, land use, materials availability, and political number of US states and non-US regions. Our analysis acceptance. By using simple “game” models as well as will help inform system resource choices and examine potentially more sophisticated mathematical simulations, the sophisticated contingency planning required to we hope to uncover principles that transcend both linear anticipate real-world obstacles. and “black box” deterministic thinking.

A third, more recent phase of CATF’s analytic work CATF’s work, while academically rigorous, has been examines the additional cost and resource requirements far from academic in its impact. As noted, it already of expanding infrastructure to provide zero-carbon fuels has helped shape dozens of state and utility pledges such as hydrogen and ammonia. Only a quarter of all to be technology inclusive. In addition, our efforts global energy is used as electricity—the other 75% is have influenced the leading federal climate change consumed through the direct combustion of coal, oil, proposals—including a national clean energy standard, and gas in buildings, industrial furnaces, and truck, an idea that is gaining traction among policy makers. plane, and ship engines. We may be able to electrify much of this demand—but likely not all. That means we Indeed, we have changed the way people think about will need to ramp up the production of the two leading the path to zero. zero-carbon fuels, hydrogen and ammonia, as well as associated infrastructure. These can be manufactured through electrolysis (splitting water), via renewables or nuclear energy, or by reforming natural gas and capturing the carbon outflow. Our preliminary analysis suggests that, as with power grids, a mix of approaches is likely to produce zero-carbon fuels at lowest cost and with the least impact on land use.

Deep decarbonization is politically and economically very challenging, which is why CATF’s focus on the facts and analysis is so refreshing and so vitally important.

Professor David G. Victor School of Global Policy and Strategy, UCSD

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 16 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Policy Advocacy Keeping on Track by Transforming Policy into Action

technology, and policy design into federal action. Federal Policy Culminating a multi-year effort to generate energy innovation policies for a whole suite of zero-carbon With a clear focus on the development and deployment technologies, we helped push across the finish line a of the new technologies that will be required for major legislative package that will provide billions of decarbonization of the economy, CATF is attentive dollars to advance the design and realization of a zero- to opportunities to press for supportive government carbon economy. And it wasn’t easy. policy—both in the US and abroad. In the US, that means working at the highest levels of government on A Race to the Finish—and a $100B Bill an array of federal legislation that advances climate repair—through emissions limits, policies that require The challenge started with the need to blend literally an increasing percentage of clean energy deployment, dozens of individual, bipartisan bills we’d backed incentives, funding, realignments, and programs—and promoting an array of clean energy technologies. moving matters towards a single end goal: innovation Led by Advocacy Director Conrad Schneider and newly that achieves a zero-carbon world by mid-century. hired Federal Policy Director Lindsey Griffith, CATF’s Federal Policy team deployed project staff to help CATF’s Federal Policy Program is where we translate shape and support major provisions of this initiative. the work of CATF’s subject matter experts on energy, And our new 501(c)(4) entity, CATF Action, founded this

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 17 year to enhance our lobbying capability—along with The environmental and energy elements of the omnibus assistance from lobbyist consultants at AJW, Inc. and bill will be key in developing the scaled-up clean energy Waxman Strategies—focused on the carbon capture, technologies required by mid-century, if we are to attain nuclear, geothermal, long-term storage, and industrial our deep decarbonization goals. They will also create decarbonization elements of what turned into a two- thousands of good paying jobs across the clean economy. chamber effort. The Senate’s offering, the American Plus, because they were enacted with bipartisan support Energy Innovation Act, had been under debate on in both the House and Senate, they validate CATF’s the Senate floor when the COVID-19 crisis struck back theory of change: that durable climate solutions arise in March 2020. Meanwhile, the House version, the from cross-aisle cooperation, which itself is sustained Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act, was passed by the understanding that people in all regions of the later, just in October. nation can be winners in the clean energy economy. During a year of record-setting divisiveness, this With time running out, CATF worked the endgame, legislation is an encouraging harbinger of future ensuring that lawmakers heard from all quarters bipartisan progress on clean energy. And it stands as a that comprehensive energy legislation was of prime capstone to literally years of work by CATF’s technology importance. The result: Congress gift-wrapped key and policy teams. But we are not finished. Already CATF’s climate provisions into a year-end omnibus spending policy advocates are mapping out ways to turn the new package covering, among other things, a much-needed spending authorizations into real-world appropriations, COVID-19 relief measure—all in all, a medley impossible while our technology teams are planning further energy for legislators to resist. With passage comes some $125 innovation advancement via the new Congress. billion in new spending authorizations over a five- year period to support research, development, and Still, while necessary, innovation or “push” policies will deployment incentives covering renewables, energy not be sufficient to solve the climate crisis. So, inspired storage, advanced nuclear, carbon capture, geothermal, by our axiom that “the best climate policy is the one that building efficiency, and more. It also unlocks $40 can be enacted,” CATF’s Federal Policy team is working billion in clean energy funding at the Department of on climate “pull” policies that set limits on greenhouse Energy’s Loan Program Office, extends key tax credits gas emissions and “pull” clean energy technologies into for renewable energy, and continues the 45Q credit for the market. Our work in 2020 began with the release carbon capture and storage that CATF helped to revamp by the leadership of the House Energy and Commerce three years ago. Committee of the CLEAN Future Act, comprehensive, economy-wide climate legislation containing Part of the Package: decarbonization policies for the power, transportation, Major Climate Legislation and industrial sectors of the US economy. With its goal a zero-carbon economy by 2050, the CLEAN Future Almost unnoticed in the fog of the US election and legislation includes a broad range of climate-friendly post-election controversies, the year-end omnibus features, among them a clean power standard for the also contained the most significant climate legislation electricity sector, tighter controls on methane emissions ever passed by Congress—legislation that will allow from the oil and gas industry, enhanced energy efficiency, the US to comply with the Montreal Protocol. and a more serious commitment to environmental justice. This international treaty will avoid up to a half-degree At the request of the legislative drafters, CATF provided Celsius of global warming by reducing the emissions of extensive technical assistance on a range of provisions— hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)—a potent super pollutant. in particular, those relating to clean energy standards CATF staff and consultants worked hard to ensure (power sector), zero-emissions vehicles (transportation), the measure was included in the final package, a key low-carbon fuel standards (transportation and industry), to winning Democratic support. The legislation also innovation (especially, nuclear energy and carbon capture reauthorizes the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, which and storage), industrial decarbonization, state climate CATF helped to design, and it includes the Utilizing policy, and super pollutants. Significant Emissions with Innovative Technologies (USE-It) Act, which supports federal, state, and NGO CATF Executive Director Armond Cohen testified collaboration in the construction and development of at the kickoff hearing for the CLEAN Future Act and carbon capture, utilization, and storage facilities, as well returned a year later to the House Energy and Commerce as carbon dioxide pipelines. Committee to testify on the importance of retaining

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 18 nuclear power as a viable decarbonization option. Later in 2020, Cohen testified (virtually) before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in favor of the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act (ANIA). State Policy

Turning Clean Energy Policy into Clean Clean energy doesn’t just happen. From experience, CATF has learned that enacting clean energy policies Energy Standards at the state level is an essential catalyst to more Beyond work on the comprehensive CLEAN Future Act, comprehensive action. In addition, state policies often our efforts on climate legislation focused on promoting produce more immediate results, and myriad efforts can discrete bills containing clean energy standards (CES) “seed the policy space”—foreshadowing, facilitating, for the power sector. A CES policy requires that an and, potentially, elevating later, all-inclusive increasing percentage of clean energy be sold into power federal programs. markets each year until retail electricity is entirely carbon free. (Our state advocacy also is engaged with CES—see That’s where Andrew Place comes in. One of CATF’s below.) Right now, eight states accounting for more than newest advocates and a former commissioner of the 20% of the nation’s generation have adopted climate- Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Place brings the friendly policies requiring fully decarbonized electricity detailed knowledge and experience needed to press for by mid-century. When we add to that the commitments clean energy standards. by dozens of electric utility companies to deep carbon Zero-carbon programs, ideally in all 50 states, must meet removal in the same timeframe, we see a clear trend that several criteria. They need to be sufficiently stringent, is now embodied in President Biden’s endorsement of diverse in approach, effective in prompting serious CES, via his Clean Energy Plan, as the preferred policy federal action, and, importantly, open to a full range path for the power sector. of zero-carbon energy sources. These include nuclear, We worked with the Biden transition team to help truly green bioenergy, superhot geothermal, and carbon actualize the campaign’s promise to draw on the power capture and sequestration, as well as advanced clean of $500 billion in annual federal procurement spending fuels like hydrogen and ammonia—themselves produced to propel the government towards zero-carbon energy— by zero-carbon sources. and, in the process, to leverage the decarbonization of As Justice Brandeis famously remarked, individual supply chains serving the private sector. states serve as laboratories for policy creativity. From a broader perspective, as Advocacy Director Because programs in different states come in different Schneider points out, CATF’s climate strategy is “multi- flavors—in politics, energy mix, resource endowment, decadal.” Our goal is to create a durable legislative and in electric industry structure, among other things— platform in the US (and elsewhere) able to support it’s important that we have an expert on the ground permanent climate vigilance. The coming year will who is well-versed in playing the “three-dimensional see us continue to apply our detailed, nuts-and-bolts chess” involved in working with multiple, and sometimes knowledge of the legislative process to better identify the overlapping, jurisdictions. The one constant is that right moments to advance climate priorities. Top of the we are pressing for state and regional clean energy list: passing climate legislation (including clean energy standards that are agnostic and, consequently, facilitate provisions) in an economic stimulus or infrastructure bill, a significantly broad set of generation technologies and working with the new federal climate leadership to provide the greatest potential for achieving on everything from replacing the past administration’s decarbonization by mid-century—a critical criterion regulatory rollbacks with an aggressive climate program, if the economy is to develop sufficient decarbonized to renewing our international engagement, having energy capacity and baseload (always-available) power just rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. With 74% of to supply growing electricity demand. all Americans of every political stripe seeking greater investment in clean energy, “there will be a lot of action in the next year,” says CATF’s Lindsey Griffith. “We know it’s a popular issue.”

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 19 Decarbonization, from Maine to California Administration, it will be easier to advance federal action; but, with polarized politics, it won’t be a walk Seven states have now embraced clean energy in the industrial park. Hence, individual states will standard legislation that includes a full range of zero- continue to be critical. Some, like California, New York, carbon generation. Additionally, Maine has enacted a and Massachusetts, are “head and shoulders” above 100% decarbonization statute through its renewable the rest, he says. The real challenge will be to convince portfolio standard. Many other states have set clean others—particularly populous, economically struggling energy objectives through other non-binding actions, jurisdictions with long fossil fuel histories—to choose a such as executive orders and policy proposals. Place is new path. assisting states and their utilities as they move towards this goal. Right now, they include Arizona, Illinois, From CATF’s vantage point, this calls for both deep Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas. Some have analytic skill around issues such as permitting, land strong statutes or executive orders on the books, while impact, transmission needs, local ordinances, technical others, like Arizona, pose the challenge of working with risk and long-term cost, and for broad experience in a vertically integrated electricity sector at a politically connecting the silos—regulatory, legislative, executive, divided moment. utility, generator, and public interest groups (“a cast of thousands''). In short, the ability to navigate highly But to transit from what, in most states, are very general complex environments. And that, says Place, “is what goals to workable clean energy standards demands gets me up in the morning.” some “serious heavy lifting,” Place notes. With a Biden

US Decarbonization Commitments Map

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 20 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Power Plants The Legal Team—Shaping Strategy, Batting Cleanup, Taking a Victory Lap

After spending the better part of four years managing toxics. In mid-2019, however, Trump’s climate deniers a rear-guard action to delay the prior administration’s revoked the Clean Power Plan and replaced it with their broad-spectrum campaign to undermine environmental so-called Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule. Contrary protection (and particularly its effort to help outdated to its name, the new rule barely touched greenhouse coal plants limp along), CATF is now well-situated to emissions; indeed, in some scenarios it would have play a far more proactive role. In anticipation, in fact, increased them—along with other air pollutants. we'd devoted time since mid-2020 to plan for a potential Biden Administration. The DC Circuit’s verdict in ALA v. EPA was damning. The court held that EPA’s ACE Rule “hinged on a Perhaps our crowning achievement was the recent win fundamental misconstruction” of a key provision of the in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Clean Air Act—and that the agency’s insistence that the where a three-judge panel rejected an attempt by the only way to reduce power plant greenhouse emissions Trump EPA to undermine the Obama Administration’s would be to “bolt on” specific hardware at each Clean Power Plan. The CPP was an innovative multi- individual plant was “arbitrary and capricious” (which is year program projected to dramatically cut climate the judiciary’s way of saying that EPA didn’t have a leg to pollution, including carbon dioxide, with the additional stand on). benefit of reducing conventional air pollutants and air

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 21 The prospect going forward is far more promising. Protecting Scientific Integrity With the Biden Administration in place, CATF is in position to advance a new version of the Clean Power A second priority in 2020 centered on Trump EPA efforts Plan, one that is far more protective than the ACE Rule to undermine both the empirical science and common- and better suited to the realities of our chaotically sense economics of air pollution management—a changing climate. In practice, this means initiatives to transparent (but well-camouflaged) attempt to slow ensure that existing coal and natural gas power plants down or block the incoming administration from quickly stay the course by continuing to cut their emissions, adopting new, more protective rules. We will now while new and modified sources—particularly gas work with the Biden Administration to “roll back the plants—are outfitted to accommodate carbon capture rollback”—and, if possible, do so on an expedited basis. and storage technologies (see below) and, potentially, Still, the Trump EPA’s activities are worth taking a to directly burn hydrogen. close look at. For example, last year the administration But looking back at 2020, there’s little doubt that our declared that EPA’s 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics defense of the Obama Clean Power Plan delayed the Standards (MATS) cost too much. Ironically, the utility Trump EPA’s final ACE Rule for the crucial period of a industry had been in full compliance with MATS since year or more. That enables the new administration to 2016, resulting in a 96% reduction in coal plant pollution. avoid further litigation and simply revoke ACE, focusing The reduction includes mercury, arsenic, cadmium, instead on issuing new, aggressive carbon regulations. In and dozens of other toxic metals and acid gases. It also fact, we immediately engaged the Biden transition team includes the huge co-benefit accruing from the ongoing on this and other priorities—for Day 1, for the First 100 move away from coal: a massive decrease in greenhouse Days, and for the First Year. Power plants and methane gas emissions. (CATF Senior Counsel and Legal Director regulations top the list. Ann Weeks characterizes the work she’s done on this issue over the past 15 years as among the major Our successful litigation to stop the ACE Rule shows achievements of her career as an advocate.) the CATF legal team at its best. We represented the lead plaintiff, along with six other public health and Yet, despite full industry compliance with MATS, environmental organizations, while working with a the Trump EPA decided to play games with the coalition of states and organizations. Our own Jay Duffy economics. It did so to undermine an earlier finding was among the attorneys appearing before the three- that the benefits of the mercury rule outweighed—by judge panel (via Zoom) during more than nine hours a factor of ten—its costs. But the agency’s new math of oral argument. came straight from the world of Orwell: EPA decided simply to ignore the co-benefits. And it chose to restrict its calculation of the remaining benefits only to those it could “monetize” (that is, reduce to hard currency). Thus, it ignored a constellation of social welfare resources that are unpriced, but priceless—improved health in environmental justice communities, for instance. In June 2020, representing five environmental and health organizations, CATF brought suit in the D.C. Circuit to further defend MATS. The case will not be taken up until 2021, if at all—meanwhile, we will press the Biden Administration to excise this very odd application of cost/benefit analysis.

CATF lawyers also played a significant role last year in pushing back against the Trump EPA’s broader anti- science efforts, as well as its beneath-the-radar bid to completely redo how costs and benefits inform all rulemaking decisions. These midnight rules attempted to take the bizarre anti-science, anti-benefit valuation twists of the MATS proceeding and stretch them over

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 22 all future Clean Air Act regulations. We have already As of year’s end, the number of lives saved had increased asked the Biden Administration to remove them. to 181,000. But, as you can observe on CATF’s interactive Going forward, we will ask the new team to prioritize Toll from Coal website, coal plant pollution still severely the further strengthening of MATS—for example, by harms human health and causes tens of thousands of addressing localized and residual risks. premature deaths.

Cleaning the Air While Cutting Carbon Playing a Dual Role CATF attorneys also are an integral part of the national The six attorneys on CATF’s legal team hold down environmental and public health alliance working on dual positions. They provide legal advice and strategic national ambient air quality standards that govern thinking for all CATF initiatives, and, as noted above, particulate matter and ground-level ozone. For our play a leading role in our long-standing effort to legal team, working to tighten these standards affords reduce emissions from major sources of air and climate a way to support key public health allies under our pollution. Here we’ve focused on fossil-fueled electric broad advocacy tent, to assist environmental justice power plants. These facilities are major air polluters communities, and to realize a co-benefit that advances (notably, of environmental justice communities) and they our chief mission—the dramatic curtailment of also are the largest single source of atmospheric carbon greenhouse gas emissions. dioxide in the US. In fact, cleaning them up has been a core CATF concern since our founding in 1996. This bread-and-butter work involves periodic review to ensure that the standards reflect the best current Clearly, CATF has had good reason to focus on fossil scientific and public health data. Last spring, during power plant emissions. As Legal Director Weeks points the height of the COVID respiratory pandemic, the out, by monitoring and improving clean air programs, our Trump EPA rejected the science entirely—including its attorneys are able to achieve CATF’s broader strategic own staff’s recommendation that the two standards be goals. “We tend to get involved in cases where we will significantly tightened. Particulates and ozone, which really make a difference,” she notes. This can mean are emitted or created by cars, trucks, power plants, and burrowing into the complex machinery of the Clean Air industry, significantly damage respiratory health. In the Act to zero in on pollution that, when reduced, yields face of this, the Trump EPA chose to do nothing. public health benefits, while also addressing climate destabilization. Last year we also emerged victorious in forcing EPA to reduce the interstate transport of ozone and Given its broad scope and record of success, the Clean to properly implement 2015’s tighter ozone standards. Air Act offers opportunities to achieve both climate and All of this supports our broader goal—a transition public health wins. As Weeks puts it: “We focus both on to cleaner fuels and sources, and the elimination of carbon dioxide and its companion pollutants: mercury greenhouse gas emissions. This year, we intend to ask and dozens of other toxics, ultrafine particulates, the new administration to prioritize upgrading the ground-level ozone, and oxides of sulfur and nitrogen— Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to ensure that it evolves knowing that reducing such ‘conventional’ air pollution in step with tightening health protections of the national yields climate benefits as well.” air quality standards.

Tracking the Impact

Meanwhile, now that the clock has expired on our IN THE MEDIA: successful efforts to delay and deflect four years of Science Magazine – April 14, 2020 climate obstructionism, we can assess the impact of EPA scientists said U.S. should tighten key air CATF’s work by looking to our health impact tracker. This pollution limit. The agency’s head just said no → online resource calculates that, from 2014 to November 3, 2020, election day, the Obama Administration’s coal plant regulations—MATS, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, and the 2008-2012 national ambient air quality standards—saved nearly 175,000 American lives, while compelling an industry shift that reduces carbon dioxide.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 23 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Super Pollutants Constructing Decarbonization, Continent by Continent

Wicked problems—climate chaos is one—are woefully South America and Europe. New support has allowed difficult to wrap your mind around. So it is useful to us to add four staffers, including a methane scientist, an identify a strategy that is relatively straightforward, oil and gas campaign manager, a technical and policy one that is both technologically simple and politically analyst, and a communications officer—all of whom are attractive, particularly on the international front. It also based in Europe. helps if your approach can produce fast results. A Focus on Methane A prime example is CATF’s Super Pollutants Program, which focuses on two major greenhouse gases that, until Much of CATF’s recent work on this project has focused on methane, CH —and for good reason. Methane is a recently, were largely downplayed or ignored. That was 4 so even though one of them, methane, in the short term powerful greenhouse gas that in the short-term accounts is a climate destabilizer more than 80 times as potent for about a quarter of all global climate destabilization. as carbon dioxide, while the other, black carbon, is of Recently that rationale was further fortified when the crucial concern in polar regions drifting towards the Biden Administration and its Clean Energy Plan declared tipping point of catastrophic meltdown. methane control to be a number-one priority and ordered the new EPA to come up with a reduction plan Our super pollutant work, on the radar for nearly no later than September. That in turn provides us with a two decades, made particular strides in 2020, as we solid platform for seeking a significant (and defensible) extended success in the US, Canada, and Mexico to 65% decrease in CH4 emissions by 2025.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 24 And this volatile molecule poses exactly the type of methane leaks from oil and gas equipment into vibrant challenge that CATF thrives on. The oil and gas sector, video. And, as we have found, showing policymakers, a major methane emitter worldwide and the largest politicians, and the media the torrent of global warming industrial source of CH4 in the US, offers a rich lode gases that gush forth from wells, tanks, compressors, of low-cost, simple fixes that depend less on complex dehydrators, and other extraction equipment is a technical interventions than on industrial re-education persuasive way to move things from advocacy to action. and policy commitment. Exporting CATF’s Expertise Our methane expertise, in the words of Super Pollutant Director Sarah Smith, makes CATF a central player: we Another major achievement this year—and a serve as a clearinghouse of accumulated knowledge blueprint for next—has grown out of the successful (that is, we “have the right legal, technical, and policy transplantation of major methane initiatives from North information that our partners need at the right time”), America where top regulators have committed to and we provide the “glue” that draws advocates and their reducing oil and gas methane emissions by 75% in five allies into a coherent, tight coalition—for instance, years. More recently, we’ve been working on similar our Methane Partners Campaign. programs in Colombia and Argentina, while broadening our outreach to other Southern Hemisphere nations. In Lima, for example, we co-hosted a regional conference on methane capture, which attracted government officials from Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia, as well as representatives from each country’s state-owned oil company.

In Colombia, we’ve continued to make substantial progress. This includes crafting a technical paper on . global best practices for methane reduction, providing

detailed guidance on how to set a methane emissions Tracking methane in Argentina with our partner Earthworks baseline and maintain an accurate emissions inventory, and a week-long survey of more than three dozen oil One important element of our success in 2020 has been and gas operations. Accompanying the survey team was the purchase of a sophisticated optical gas imaging an OGI camera that graphically illustrated the extent of camera. The new OGI camera will serve a key educational the challenge—and led to widespread media attention role—transforming imperceptible but widespread across the nation.

Estimated Abatement Potential – A Global Reduction of 75% Source: IEA (2020) Total possible abatement: 56,951 kt (72%) 10.00 At no net cost: 30,350 kt (38%)

Abatement Technologies: 7.50 Vapor Recovery Units

5.00 Blowdown Capture Early Replacement of Devices

2.50 Install Flares Replace with Electric Motor 0.00 Install Plunger Upstream Leak Detection and Repair -2.50 Cost ($/thousand BTUs) BTUs) ($/thousand Cost Downstream Leak Detection and Repair Replace Pumps -5.00 Replace with Instrument Air System

[1 BTU = 1.037 thousand cubic feet of natural gas] feet cubic thousand [1 BTU = 1.037 Replace Compressor Seal or Rod -7.50 0 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 Other

Thousand Tonnes (kt) of Methane

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 25 Following political upheaval there, we’re back on track be a first: legislation requiring supplier nations to control in Argentina, after the new energy minister signed a CH4 leaks before selling their product to the 27 joint cooperation agreement with the Inter-American member nations of the political and economic alliance. Development Bank, allowing our Global Methane The number one supplier is Norway, where our recently Coalition to resume capacity-building exercises. hired technical and policy specialist—and a former By the end of 2021, we’re hoping to see final methane Mexican oil regulator—is stationed. Strict but achievable rules in place in Colombia, followed two years later by standards to reduce methane discharge from outside the proposals in Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador. EU (which accounts for about 94% of total EU-related releases) would be an immediate plus, equal to the In achieving these successes, we’ve relied on the elimination of 120 coal plants by 2030. expertise and enthusiasm of Mexican energy regulators to inspire others with the story of how their nation is Our big challenge in the EU, apart from working on ways implementing the strongest methane controls on the to reduce emissions from gas imported from places planet. We also drew on Mexican expertise to transport like Russia, Algeria, and Qatar, will be to encourage our program across the Atlantic—first to Nigeria, where EU officials to follow through with strong legislation we hosted a popular workshop, and then to the EU. minimizing methane emissions and flaring inside Europe.

Advocating in the EU for Cleaner A third accomplishment over the past year has been Gas Imports launching the Country Methane Abatement Tool— CoMAT. This electronic instrument, fully open-source Growing emphasis over the coming years will be and totally customizable, allows policymakers, industry placed squarely on Europe, where much of our new staff representatives, and academics to explore methane is located and where, emerging from years of neglect, reduction options for their oil and gas systems— interest in methane control is finally gaining traction. based both on a default case and on up-to-date, country- This is a promising turn, as the EU is the second-largest specific data. Going forward, CoMAT will become ever global consumer of natural gas (which is, essentially, more detailed and accurate, drawing in more users and methane) and the largest (by far) gas importer. Our goal helping to spread the word that major greenhouse gas is not just to help EU nations put the stopper on reductions can be identified and addressed right now. domestic methane leaks, but also to achieve what would

Estimated and Projected Global Anthropogenic Methane Emissions by Source, 2020 and 2030 Source: Global Methane Initiative (2015)

3000 Estimated 2020

-eq) Emissions 2 Projected Added 2500 Emissions by 2030

2000 equivalent (MtCO equivalent 2 1500

1000

500

Million metric tonnes of CO tonnes Million metric 0 Enteric Municipal Waste Other Ag Manure Fermentation Solid Waste Water Sources Management Oil & Gas Coal Rice Stationary Biomass Mining Cultivation & Mobile

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 26 Finally, CATF is preparing to work with the Biden One of the great collateral benefits of our Super Pollutant Administration to achieve rapid progress on our domestic Program has been its tendency to break down silos, both methane agenda. This has included crafting a detailed external and internal to CATF. For methane, we’ve made white paper explaining how the US oil and gas industry, new connections with the litigation team (of course), one of the world’s largest, can implement a suite of well- as well as with our carbon capture and sequestration tested, bolt-on measures that have the aggregate capacity advocates, who like us are focusing on the oil and to cut methane emissions levels by two-thirds within five gas sector and the fuels it extracts. For black carbon, years. These include more frequent leak detection and CATF’s other major super pollutant, synergies center repair (critically important for halting super-emitters in on our broader campaign for zero-carbon fuels (here, their tracks), pneumatic pump upgrades that don’t rely on we’re advising American and European governments (or release) natural gas, the elimination of emissions from on relevant policy opportunities to reduce black well completions, the reduction of regulatory exemptions carbon), on protecting earth’s ice cap, and on securing for compressors and dehydrators, and the prohibition reauthorization of the Diesel Emission Reduction Act, a of routine venting and flaring. CATF has found working federal grant-and-loan program targeting black carbon examples of each of these measures in established emissions from the existing fleet of on- and off-road regulatory programs in individual US states and Canadian vehicles. One near-term candidate for an energy source provinces. At the national level, our goals are embodied based on hydrogen or ammonia—neither of which in the CLEAN Future Act, released in the US House, and contains a carbon molecule—is international shipping, in the June 2020 Action Plan issued by majority members particularly in the polar regions. of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. With the new Biden Administration, those goals point to All of which provides real-world proof of the first law a stronger methane regulatory proposal from EPA by the of ecology: everything is connected to everything else. end of 2021, final rules the following year, and on-the- ground reductions soon thereafter.

Defending US Methane Regulation Projected Impact of Super Pollutant Reductions Source: adapted from UNEP 2011, p. 255 This year, not surprisingly, we were called on once again to play defense. This meant guarding the major regulatory 3.5 advances of the Obama years from total demolition by Accelerated the Trump Administration. First, there was the attempted biodiversity loss 3.0 (e.g., coral reefs) unravelling of the federal Bureau of Land Management’s Deadlier methane waste rule, which limits new and existing wells 2.5 heatwaves from needlessly squandering natural gas on federal lands. More catastrophic Prospecting there poses a growing problem, because 2.0 wildfires these sources (like others) also emit hazardous air More extreme storms pollutants and fine particulate matter, both of which are 1.5 major human health hazards. Next, there was the threat, ultimately realized, to do the same to EPA’s methane 1.0 CO2 measures rules, which extend nationwide, although they apply only alone

to new or modified equipment. Mean 1890-1920 to Relative (°C) Temp 0.5 CO2 + CH4 + black carbon measures Business-as-usual So, CATF was forced to deploy another of its well- 0 fashioned tools, litigation. Though always best used as a 2000 2050 last resort, this past year such last resorts have not been all that rare. After CATF and allies challenged the BLM rescission in federal District Court, we secured a ruling that halted the dismemberment of the BLM program. IN THE MEDIA: In response to EPA’s parallel attack on its own methane program, we once again deployed our legal team. Washington Post – October 14, 2020 Fortunately, the change in administration will simplify the The number of global methane hot spots challenge considerably and allow us to go on the offense, has soared this year despite the economic pressing for strong new rules. slowdown →

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 27 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Carbon Capture and Storage A Critical Option for Climate Success

Carbon capture and sequestration (or storage) (CCS) is components of a coordinated global climate response. a critical tool for taking on the climate challenge—and a Right now, much of the action is in the US, with interest key one. Beyond providing an option for firm electricity brewing (and funds flowing) in another favorable venue, generation in the power sector, CCS will most likely be the EU. But, to meet global decarbonization goals, CCS needed for heavy industry, where fossil fuel substitutes must take root beyond the highly developed nations of are hard to find or where process chemistry inherently the West. Coal and natural gas plants have been erected emits carbon. It’s also a potential aid in reforming at a rapid rate, particularly in Asia, and those new, methane into hydrogen and thus producing zero-carbon young plants are likely to be in full operation for many fuels. In the future, CCS may be called on to supplement years. In fact, the number of coal-fired generators in “direct air capture,” just now being demonstrated, in China, India, and Southeast Asia built less than a decade which carbon is extracted straight from the atmosphere ago exceeds by a factor of 30 the number of coal plants and injected underground. To jump start the process, in the US built over the same period. The total annual today we are pushing for innovation policies and power generation from just Asia Pacific coal plants engaging in support of pioneer CCS projects. (45% of which are less than a decade old) generates nearly twice as much electricity as all US power The solidly pragmatic objective here is to propel sources (coal, gas nuclear, and renewables combined). carbon-capture technology from early commercial This foreshadows a long trail of intractable carbon. and demonstration projects to fully commercialized CCS can provide a way forward.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 28 Growing Government Support sequestration infrastructure and markets. They include policy proposals to drive new technology development, “In the past year,” says Deepika Nagabhushan, director shepherd technologies across the so-called “valley of our CCS initiative, “we’ve upped the momentum of death” to commercial demonstration, propel early that’s freeing carbon capture and storage from its ‘very deployment, and create an ecosystem nurturing neglected space’—and ushering it into the realm of policy favorable infrastructure and regulations. All of these formulation.” With CCUS Policy Innovation Director pieces will be necessary to ensure that CCS is a scalable Lee Beck joining the staff last June, CATF successfully and affordable technology option for the world. fought to include CCS-friendly provisions in several major federal bills and reports, including the action plan issued One innovative concept we’re looking at is a geologic by the Democratic staff of the House Select Committee storage organization. This entity would be responsible on the Climate Crisis, key sections of the bipartisan Clean for all aspects of storing captured carbon within a given Economy Jobs and Innovation Act adopted by the US geologic basin—including site selection, transportation, House of Representatives, and even emergency economic underground injection, monitoring, and long-term legislation responding to the COVID pandemic. liability. In doing so, geologic storage potential could be optimized across entire basins. It would also offer In December 2020, CATF’s efforts culminated with several regulators a single point of accountability for resource CCS provisions making it into the bipartisan Energy Act management, accelerate CCS adoption by providing of 2020, passed as part of a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending to multiple carbon capture projects in a given region a bill. Importantly, the Energy Act authorizes Department centralized source of storage services, and develop CO2 of Energy aid of more than $6 billion to help develop supply pipeline networks. CO2 storage sites, commercialization of carbon-capture technologies, and at-scale demonstrations of direct air Opportunities Across the US capture technologies. In addition to work at the federal level, we’ve expanded At a broader level, CATF Technology and Markets our carbon-capture efforts in specific states, particularly Director John Thompson is working on an “innovation Pennsylvania, historically reliant on fossil fuel extraction, agenda” articulating the strategic steps needed to and California, the birthplace of so much modern clean transform carbon capture and storage from a solidly energy policy and innovation. In Pennsylvania, we’re demonstrated technology to one that promises broad- pressing to advance into law a specific incentive for scale commercial viability. As part of this effort, carbon dioxide storage—especially fitting for a state we’re examining several policies that support carbon with significant carbon emissions (95% of all greenhouse

US Early-Stage CCS Project Map

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 29 gases from coal-fired power in the entire New England On the other side of the globe, we’re continuing to work and Mid-Atlantic combined, and the eighth-highest in in China. This fall, our Chief Geoscientist L. Bruce Hill, the nation) and, given its geology and history of coal Ph.D. and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of mining, potentially significant underground storage. Sciences published in the peer-reviewed International In California, we’re deeply involved in analyzing the Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control an extensive review state’s plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, of Chinese geologic storage sites related to enhanced oil particularly ways in which CCS can become an recovery, which is the Chinese government’s first focus important zero-carbon technology player across the area for geologic storage. power, transportation, and industrial sectors. The prospects look even brighter for 2021. With Our national work has been facilitated by our taking what the arrival of the Biden Administration, we hope to we’ve uncovered from real-world research and putting accelerate implementation of our innovation agenda. it into an online map and data tracker. Here, the nearly That means pressing even harder for federal energy and three dozen carbon capture and sequestration projects climate legislation, while helping to clear a pathway for now underway in the US can be parsed by location, carbon capture and storage to move into commercial type, stage, and a host of other features. Tools like this demonstration and broad deployment. Immeasurably have increased transparency into the emerging state of helpful here will be the innovative CCS tax credit the industry. Moreover, they contribute to growing the expansion (45Q), which CATF helped escort through diverse coalition that is bringing to market a technology the legislative process two years ago and that this past which, by mid-century, may be called on to remove from May was further advanced with the issuance of final the air and forever sequester hundreds of billions of tons IRS regulations. The 45Q credit provides an important of CO2. With our CCS data tracker up and running and incentive for CCS development, as evidenced by the fact continually updated, “now project developers want to that, since its passage, initial real-world projects have be seen on it, they want to come back to CATF and give increased from only a handful to, at last count, nearly 35 us updates,” notes Nagabhushan. But, she adds, it also in a dozen states across the US. means that action must start immediately—“if we want to be ready with the technology when we need it.” All of that portends a broader push for clean energy legislation in additional jurisdictions, particularly those Expanding into New Issues and Regions open to a full range of strategies for a zero-carbon future. In California, seen by many as the primary incubator One key aspect of any advanced green technology is its for that future, we plan to press for a government- potential to deliver what are known as “co-benefits”— backed carbon capture and storage task force that will that is, additional value beyond carbon reduction. streamline agency review, initiate a regulatory approval Co-benefits can be especially significant when looking process for geologic storage utilities, move to include at social equity. Working with advocates in Texas and carbon capture in the state’s cap-and-trade program, California, for example, we’re undertaking a study and examine how CCS can address carbon emissions to examine the impacts of CCS on particulates and from California’s hulking cement plants and oil refineries. other airborne health hazards emitted by refineries As is often the case, a non-governmental alliance is and cement plants, which are commonly located in or accelerating this effort. Here, it is called the California near environmental justice communities. This research Decarbonization Partnership, a coalition of universities has the potential to better inform all stakeholders, and (Stanford, for one), federal research labs (e.g., Lawrence especially front line communities, of the potential public Berkeley), labor organizations (the United Steelworkers), health co-benefits, risks, and risk management strategies potential CCS developers (Shell, Chevron, and Calpine), associated with CCS. and NGOs—including, of course, Clean Air Task Force.

Internationally, we recently expanded our work in Europe, a major focus of which will be increasing our impact in the mature climate policy environment of the EU. Related to this, we are aggressively commenting on IN THE MEDIA: key CCS components of proposed EU climate strategies, Reuters – September 17, 2020 laws, and regulations, while also organizing an effective ANALYSIS-All must come aboard for a smooth stakeholder network. And we recently published a ride to carbon-neutral future → white paper on the very extensive European CCS efforts.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 30 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Advanced Nuclear Energy Building a Viable Nuclear Energy Option

Our analysis and research on the climate crisis and earth (fission provides 20% of America’s electricity the timely availability of the proper tools to fix it have today), the hundreds of yearly gigawatts of needed convinced us—again and again—that a strategy nuclear first must deploy technologies that have been encompassing nuclear energy can significantly demonstrated, but for the most part not yet developed enhance our chances of success. at commercial scale. And we must deliver these new technologies in a new way. This means both large and What nuclear fission has going for it is scale. small configurations of traditional light water reactors, (Today’s conventional nuclear plants typically are one as well as full-size and modular versions of potentially gigawatt (GW) in size, and each can power about 1.4 a host of more efficient and less costly options: high- million homes, providing the same output as 400 wind temperature gas reactors, reactors cooled with low- turbines or 3 million solar panels). Scale is what enabled pressure molten salt, or with liquid lead or sodium, as France to use nuclear energy to decarbonize its electric well as pebble-bed designs. Importantly, we see nuclear grid in a mere two decades, which is about the time we not just as a clean source of consumer electricity, have to do that for the planet today. but also potentially as clean feedstock power for manufacturing zero-carbon fuels—essential if we But the nuclear pathway that CATF seeks to promote is are serious about managing climate. a new one. Although it builds on decades of experience with a keystone source of power across much of the

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 31 Changing the Delivery Model are the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act and the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act. Perhaps even more important than new technology They provide funding for demonstration of advanced itself is a profound change in the business, delivery, designs and encourage US nuclear power regulators to and regulatory model used to deploy it. Today’s nuclear modernize the licensing process to account for these power industry builds its huge plants craft-style, in new technologies. small numbers, customized for sites, often taking more than a decade to finish. This outdated approach will In 2020, we advocated for a number of additional never move the climate dial. We need an industry that pieces of legislation—among them, the Nuclear Energy delivers a global, factory-built, standardized product, Leadership Act (NELA) and the American Nuclear much like natural gas turbines today, which can be Infrastructure Act (ANIA). As a part of a larger coalition, licensed and overseen by regulators in multiple nations CATF worked with Capitol Hill staff and partners to see on a cooperative basis—thus reducing costs through that NELA was included in the House energy bill and in economies of scale and compressing delivery times to a the Senate’s National Defense Authorization legislation. few years, rather than a decade. Later, most of NELA became law as part of the Energy Act of 2020, which itself was an element of a much On technology choice, CATF is not playing favorites larger omnibus package. CATF is optimistic that the at this early stage. We instead develop new laws, remaining provisions, which relate to Power Purchase regulations, and policies that can support any Agreements (PPAs), will be enacted by the new 117th technology and shepherd it through the complex process Congress. NELA focuses DOE on advancing concepts of acceptance, action, and adoption. In the past two for the demonstration of advanced reactors, improving years, for example, CATF played a key role in developing options for fueling advanced reactors, and helping to and supporting two important bills that will help to grow the nuclear energy workforce. CATF testified modernize the nuclear power industry—particularly in on the draft version of ANIA in August and has been the US, where a variety of innovative advanced reactor engaged with Hill staff and partners to further refine it designs are under development. Passed by overwhelming prior to introduction. ANIA awards monetary prizes for bipartisan majorities in late 2018 and early 2019, these

French Electricity Sources 1960-2015 Source: CATF based on World Bank Development Indicators

The most dramatic example of scaling is France, which nearly completely decarbonized its electric grid in 15 years through the deployment of nuclear energy, shown below:

90 Fossil Sources 15 Year Transition Nuclear 80

Fraction of electricity (%) production Fraction 10

0 60 1975 1970 1985 1965 1995 2015 1980 2010 1990 2005 2000

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 32 certain advanced reactors, supports existing reactors, dozen US companies are vying to satisfy this huge global and funds the cleanup of hard rock mining on Native demand by creating reactor designs of this type. American lands. Reshaping Discourse, Crafting Together, these strikingly bipartisan legislative initiatives Partnerships (they drew support from progressive climate hawks like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, as well as climate skeptics Our initial work over the past year has been less like Senator James Inhofe) will ease the domestic nuclear than flashy, perhaps, but essential to reshaping the industry’s entry into the 21st century, while helping conversation—making it clear that, to meet the global to harmonize essential federal support with growing climate challenge, we must think big about global interest and commitment from private investors. nuclear expansion. That means being able to replicate the capacity of the entire existing system—more than Also over the past year, we’ve been working on a change 400 reactors—every few years. framework to help a modernizing nuclear industry advance from the current average of 10 large reactors To that end, we commissioned and are helping to fund a year to planning for the deployment of 10 times that several studies looking at the key elements of a nuclear number. Much of the technology development can occur industry harnessed to protect climate. The studies in the US, while we create a sophisticated and integrated are examining strategies for international licensing, international licensing system to expedite the marketing safety regulation, and reactor fabrication; early US of new, safe designs—particularly modular designs with development of advanced reactors; and the use of major components produced in bulk off-site—all across nuclear energy to produce hydrogen and ammonia, the globe. Potential customers include 30 to 40 nations key zero-carbon fuels. And we are already taking this in Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, knowledge and turning it into policy proposals at the Indonesia, and the Middle East. Today, more than two national and international level.

The New Face of Fission

Artist’s rendering of the Natrium reactor, which was developed by TerraPower and General Electric-Hitachi, and recently awarded demonstration funding by US DOE. This highly compact reactor uses 80% less concrete than traditional units and contains on-site energy storage, which allows power to respond to grid demand, complementing natural fluctuations in wind and solar output. From its compact footprint, this plant’s annual output would equal that of the world’s largest offshore wind farms, which occupy 40 mi.2, or four of the largest solar farms—a total of 5 million solar panels. (Credit: TerraPower)

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 33 Other recent activities: Top goals are to: • Filing an amicus brief in New Jersey backing state laws • Further develop and publish our vision to greatly expand that provide financial support for existing nuclear units reactor deployment, and carry its message to a broad and helping to craft Illinois policy that would preserve worldwide audience of political leaders, regulators, existing nuclear plants; climate advocates, nuclear vendors, investors, large industrial customers, and allied industries; • With MIT, co-developing and offering a three-day educational workshop (“Nuclear Energy 101”) for • Work to establish an entity to provide technical federal and state policy staff, environmental NGOs, assistance for improving and harmonizing international academics, and philanthropists; licensing and oversight of nuclear energy;

• Devising and helping to enact funding for a revised • Foster the enactment of provisions of nuclear bills we federal research program on the health effects of low- are supporting and providing input on, such as the PPA dose radiation, the better to shape future regulation of provisions of NELA and ANIA; and nuclear energy; and • Be able to look back on 2021 as the year in which • Designing policies in Pennsylvania and Virginia that nuclear was understood to be not only a major building would include nuclear energy in future decarbonized block for generating electricity, but also for producing power portfolios. zero-carbon hydrogen.

Ultimately, explains Executive Director Armond Cohen, A More Receptive Political Environment CATF’s goal is to see that nuclear power “is transformed into a mass commodity industry like aviation or marine With the Biden Administration, we expect a broadened, shipping—where we’re churning out hundreds of units more serious discussion about climate and greater a year, rather than just a few. That’s how solar and wind opportunity to more deeply engage the federal became cheap, and gas and coal power plants became government in our long-term nuclear strategy. the first choice for developing countries seeking big blocks of energy. We need to replicate that success, but with a power-dense, carbon-free source.”

CATF is the bridge to the future. We bridge both aisles of Congress and both sides of industry. I see CATF as a stepping stone to bringing people together.

Brett Rampal Director of Nuclear Innovation

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 34 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Bioenergy Separating the Chaff from the Wheat— and Husks from Kernels

Bioenergy—this term used to be virtually a synonym And this is one of the paramount lessons that CATF for a green future. But after several decades under the has learned: that it takes careful study and sustained illusion that if it grows it glows, CATF has had to take ingenuity to shed off slogans in favor of science, and the axe to a forest of confused and contradictory policy to shift a conversation that, as Lewis puts it, “doesn’t tendrils surrounding this particular outgrowth of the break down along party lines.” Though still an uphill word "sustainability." battle, our goal is to describe the current impacts and future potential of energy from plant material in a way At root, the problem is simple, says Senior Counsel that gets understood by lawmakers and agency staff, Jonathan Lewis, head of our bioenergy initiative. and then gets acted on. Congress has sent conflicting It’s about holding the line on an energy resource that’s signals over the years, as it has tried to mollify two become increasingly political—and one that, over time, key political interests: Big Agriculture, with its fleet of has developed a distinctly unsustainable footprint. ethanol refineries dotting the Farm Belt, and, to their But finding a workable way forward—for example, south, the American petroleum patch, which generally building legislative guardrails to keep bioenergy focused has remained unexcited about replacing fossil fuel with on actual, real-time carbon removal—is anything corn ethanol, soy biodiesel, and the like. but simple.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 35 The Downward Spiral waste or on high-yield energy crops harvested only from areas currently planted for corn-based ethanol. Fortunately, the past few years of confusion have Analyzed as part of a year 2050 decarbonization helped us cement relations with allies and sympathetic pathway, this more selective approach could avoid policymakers to ensure that the primary driver of new rounds of land clearing. A first cut suggests that biofuels, the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, doesn’t bioenergy generated this way— good bioenergy, if you develop any more traction going forward. The empirical will—could help satisfy a modest portion of future US issue, we’ve found, is that, because most US biofuels are demand for liquid transportation fuels. created by harvesting corn and soybeans on real estate previously used to grow food, landowners frequently Resetting the Narrative respond to the unmet demand by clearing more land so they can plant more corn and soybeans. The result: At the same time, CATF and a cadre of NGOs such as existing carbon sinks in the form of uncultivated land are the National Wildlife Federation and Earthjustice are destroyed, and more carbon ends up in the atmosphere. looking at ways to totally change up the conversation. Regular meetings among environmental allies consider A second challenge exists, too, and that is biomass new forms of bioenergy—including hydrogen made from power. Bioenergy not only encompasses feedstocks for gasified biomass, the refiring of fossil energy plants with liquid fuels, it also includes wood products and woody biofuel (while sequestering related carbon emissions waste burned in electric generators. There, the prime underground), and attempts to crack the hardest nut of issue is time—without careful accounting to ensure that all: how to transform the current bioenergy landscape incoming fuel consists only of waste wood that already into an advanced biofuels industry that is carbon neutral. has ended its life as a long-term carbon storage vessel, the feedstock will include a heavy dose of wood that was In 2021, with the new administration, CATF hopes to still absorbing carbon when harvested. Although it’s true accelerate thinking about and planning for what we that the forest may regrow (assuming that it isn’t turned see as the required transition from the existing US to some other use, like a cornfield or a subdivision), Renewables Fuel Standard—too weak and such a system ensures that feedstock carbon goes fundamentally misdirected towards mega-farms that turn directly into the air, while the replacement forest—the food crops into biofuel—to a zero-carbon fuel standard. sequestered carbon (aka, the carbon sink)—develops Of necessity, that will include a more honest discussion only inch by inch, typically over a period of decades. In about the inadequacy of the current bioenergy regime. other words, the current approach to biomass power ensures that we are living on borrowed time. When it comes to bioenergy, CATF is exercising a core strength—exposing what has morphed into an ecological This past year, one of CATF’s consultants ran a impostor, and then working with our allies to transform decarbonization model exploring the potential climate the entire conversation. impact of a US bioenergy system relying solely on plant

CATF never settles. We’re always looking for new ideas, new opportunities, and new challenges.

Jonathan Lewis Senior Counsel

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 36 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Zero-Carbon Fuels The Prize—Zero-Carbon Fuels for a Zero-Carbon World

At the central point around which so much of CATF’s Hydrogen is likely to be the zero-carbon fuel of choice work revolves sits our core mid-century objective: for many applications. It carries more energy by to achieve a world that emits into the atmosphere weight than any other molecule, and when bundled absolutely no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse up as ammonia, NH3, it has physical properties similar gases. This is the zero-carbon future that animates to propane. In fact, notes Mike Fowler, director of everything we do. Advanced Energy Technology Research, “hydrogen could be used all across the economy.” It’s versatile, But, realistically, such a future will not be reached portable in a variety of ways, and, when burned, unless societies can bring carbon-free fuels into the decomposes into water.” mix. On a global basis, 85% of total end-use energy consumption is delivered by hydrocarbon molecules Focusing on Where Hydrogen Makes Sense and, of that, nearly two-thirds arrives as oil or gas. Much of this is used in activities and processes (shipping, At this early point, CATF’s primary challenge is to “focus trucking, chemical manufacturing, for instance) that do the field,” says Fowler. That means identifying uses not lend themselves to the usual substitute, electricity. where hydrogen makes the most sense. Serendipitously, Thus, the need for carbonless liquid energy. Even some in the past few years, interest in hydrogen as a clean fuel requirements of the electric grid—e.g., dealing with the has gained narrative momentum, while at the same time significant variability of renewables—can be satisfied our own involvement has blossomed. Fowler rejoined with this new generation of fuels. CATF after a stint working on carbon capture and

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 37 advanced batteries; a few months earlier, his colleague Key areas include: Jonathan Lewis, senior counsel and lead of our new • Heavy-duty commercial trucking (Lewis helped zero-carbon transportation initiative, had elevated the organize a November conference on transportation discussion by issuing Fuels Without Carbon, a CATF decarbonization); report outlining the way forward—and describing (in Lewis’ words) “a landscape of opportunity.” • High-temperature process heat in the petro-chemical industry, which is a major user of petroleum-based As with any new idea, particularly one calling for major fuels, as well as in advanced ironmaking; change that promises long-term benefits, our work this • The electricity sector, with hydrogen stored— past year on zero-carbon fuels has involved extensive essentially as a chemical “battery”—and then burned engagement with energy companies and thought leaders when the system’s renewable resources (wind and sun) in the US and, particularly, in Europe and Asia—regions are not available—an application likely to be far less further along in the process of understanding. Until the costly than a massive renewable system able to pandemic, this included travel to what is perhaps the operate 100% of the time; and leading clean fuel nation in Asia—Japan. Fowler and Lewis visited several times in late 2019 and early 2020, • International marine shipping. meeting with staff at the hydrogen ministry, presenting to the green ammonia consortium (first in person, then The latter area has been a focal point of Lewis’s work by video), and checking out new demonstration projects this year. In addition to extensive interaction with the that co-fire NH to generate power. 3 major shipping companies and regulators, this has included testifying in September before the US Senate “Among NGOs,” says Lewis, “we’re a leading voice and Committee on Energy and Natural Resources regarding thinker on zero-carbon fuels.” But, because the US is far zero-carbon fuels for marine shipping, and working behind in this area, most of the work is overseas. with a team from Columbia University’s School of Fowler is helping to set up CATF’s office in Europe. International and Public Affairs on an extensive study “Europe is moving aggressively on hydrogen use to of the capacity of major global port systems to supply decarbonize buildings and heavy transport,” he notes, zero-carbon fuel—most likely, ammonia—to large “while blazing a trail of global significance.” ocean vessels. The report, Zero-Carbon Fuels for Marine Our intensifying examination of clean fuels this year Shipping, was released in May. looked at how to best manufacture hydrogen and With a new administration in Washington, the feeling ammonia, as well as how to most effectively use it. is that climate change will receive renewed emphasis. On the production side, we are eyeing the development In the near term, that is likely to mean more funding of regional hubs, where hydrogen can be manufactured for green infrastructure, some of which Fowler and cheaply and then distributed for use. One candidate is Lewis hope can be directed to zero-carbon fuels. Southern California, whose enormous solar resource But, regardless of when funding arrives, CATF will could generate hydrogen through the electrolytic continue to press full speed ahead with its fundamental partition of ordinary water. Alternatively, along Houston’s strategy, one that does not hinge on immediate attention Gulf Coast, natural gas (as noted, mostly CH ) could be 4 from the political powers of the moment: to work with tapped, with its waste carbon captured and sequestered industry, NGOs, and other non-government players to underground—yielding so-called blue hydrogen, which advance the hydrogen fuel future towards demonstration also is climate compatible so long as upstream methane projects and early-stage deployment—or, as Fowler emissions are eliminated. puts it, “so that the technology and infrastructure are Emphasizing Heavy-Duty Applications ready when the political climate allows greater decarbonization efforts.” This year, we put particular emphasis on several high- energy uses that would be especially hard to electrify and could accommodate hydrogen.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 38 03 – OUR WORK & FOCUS Advanced Energy Technology Tapping into Next-Generation Technologies—Today

The scientists, policy pros, and advocates at Clean cleanly power entire sectors or turn basic feedstock Air Task Force often take the long view—not just in into pollution-free fuel. Each, in other words, would be estimating the impacts of climate disruption, but also a game-changer. of the future technologies that can be brought to bear to address it. To us, these are not moonshots; rather, Interrogating the Inferno they comprise a very calculated strategy to take existing To the uninitiated, geothermal tends to be viewed as a research programs to the next level—and to do so over niche resource, pumped from volcanic rock that lurks what is necessarily a broad arc of time. just below the surface of some of the planet's more far- One of these efforts, so-called superhot rock flung landscapes: Iceland, Italy, California, Mexico, and geothermal, will build on long-established drilling New Zealand. But superhot geothermal is different—at techniques (read: oil and gas) to reach down to and depth, it is available everywhere on earth. And, if tapped, harvest the limitless energy of the earth’s crust. it becomes a highly scalable energy resource that would The other, nuclear fusion, would help direct seasoned provide essential, always-on power from a tiny surface research programs toward a clear mission—seed power footprint in virtually limitless quantities—forever. to propel a zero-carbon energy system by mid-century. But CATF doesn’t waste time chasing flashy promises; The first, deep geothermal, looks inward; the second, rather, it invests in promising climate solutions anchored fusion, looks for inspiration to the sun. Each could in existing technology and know-how. In the case of

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 39 energy from hot rocks—known formally as engineered A Revolutionary New Energy Source (or enhanced) geothermal systems (EGS)—that technology and know-how grounds the very approach Right now, however, deep hot rock technology is that made the US a top global oil producer: innovative confined to the laboratory bench. CATF aims to coax it drilling. And it builds on a technology that is well out. We’re using our long experience in bringing together understood by an international industry increasingly scientists, technicians, knowledgeable industry leaders, interested in locating sustainable opportunities that and climate advocates to spread the news that EGS tightly fit its deep experience. Like hot rocks. is not your grandparent’s geothermal. We’re working to transform it into a major long-term strategy for The challenge is that rocks sufficiently thermal to do the constraining climate chaos. job—a toasty 400° C or more—generally lie in the upper layer of the lithosphere, 5 to 20 kilometers below the The start-up challenges, though significant, are not earth’s surface. That means abandoning rotary overwhelming. We estimate that an initial federal metal bits in favor of direct energy drilling—that is, program funded at less than 10% of the nation’s current melting open subterranean shafts with the help of investment in other renewables would inject the needed plasma torches, lasers, or extremely high-frequency momentum. Although CATF’s geothermal initiative, one millimeter waves. When injected into deep crevices, of our newest, is just getting underway, the prospects water instantly assembles itself into a superhot, are promising—and the potential payoff is more than superfluid hybrid of liquid and steam, then shoots up profound. Not a bad forecast for a first-ever advocacy through a production well to drive a high pressure effort to develop and commercialize advanced baseload turbine. After cooling, it heads back underground, renewables. endlessly recycled. Because it delivers ten times the energy of a conventional well, superhot geothermal can radically upgrade the economics of this long-overlooked source of superclean power.

Perspectives on the Geothermal Sweet Spot

Key

1. Deepwater Horizon oil well (Gulf of Mexico) 2. Current geothermal 2 4 1 3 (Nesjavellir, Iceland) 0 3. Kola borehole, Russia 5°C (world’s deepest)

2 4. Ground-source heat pump

6 150°C Depth (km) Depth 8 Superhot Geothermal Resource 374°C 10

12 400°C

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 40 In the coming year, CATF will build on this • With partners Seattle-based HERO (Hot Rock Research groundwork by: Organization) and Lucid Catalyst, issuing a report and • Reaching out to the oil and gas, utility, mining, and roadmap focusing on superhot geothermal’s technical industrial sectors to educate and win support for readiness and need for additional innovation, and superhot rock demonstration projects; undertaking an updated modeling assessment of the expected levelized cost of energy from superhot • With colleague and former Obama Administration rock projects. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy at US DOE, David Mohler, developing a bridge strategy to advance demonstration projects to the early Nudging Nuclei into Line commercialization phase; Another potential game-changing option is fusion • Building an international advisory board and hosting energy, long known by its ironic tagline: the limitless an expert workshop to galvanize research and energy source that’s always three decades away. demonstration projects; Only, again, that’s becoming more myth than reality. In fact, at a time of technical progress as well as a • Connecting with US Congress and DOE to advance growing perception by private capital that fusion geothermal innovation recommendations developed presents an attractive opportunity for competitive through an ongoing process that’s brought together investment, the pathway from idea to commercialization federal decision makers, key advocates like CATF, is shrinking. As a result, focus is shifting away from and the Edison Electric Institute, which is the trade massive and long-term government endeavors, like the association for investor-owned utilities; and International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)

Funding to Fusion Energy Companies by Year Source: www.fusionenergybase.com

400M Source Classification

Grant 350M Investment

300M

250M

200M

Funding Amount ($) Amount Funding 150M

100M

50M

0M 2011 2017 2012 2015 2013 2018 2014 2019 2016 2001 2010 2007 2002 2020 2005 2003 2008 2009 2000

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 41 program, towards nearer-term deployment of fusion As Director of Nuclear Innovation Brett Rampal technology at the commercial scale. Within the fusion explains, “The growth of private fusion developers space, CATF has few peers among advocates. and investment could offer the world transformative change in the form of clean and abundant energy in a Although fully commercial fusion is not likely to arrive fundamentally different timeline than public endeavors before the mid-2030s, we’re increasingly optimistic have previously considered.” that the energy source that powers the stars can play a potentially significant role in decarbonizing earth’s air Although fusion today is definitely on the hot, rather before mid-century—an essential period of catch-up if than cold, side—with researchers seeking commercial global temperature escalation is to be held to 2° C or viability via such futuristic-sounding technologies as less. Recent technical breakthroughs—in computing high-temperature, super-conducting magnets and power, super-conducting magnets, control of hot high-velocity projectile gas guns—it offers positives plasmas, and materials science—have led to improved that parallel superhot rock geothermal: plenty of fuel understanding of the forces that hold nuclei together and (hydrogen isotopes), a small footprint, always-available the prospects for harnessing their massive energies. power, absence of very long-lived radioactive waste, and, of course, zero greenhouse gas emissions. In the past decade, reported private investment in fusion research has grown from virtually zero to more than $1.5 CATF’s focus over the past two years, and its continuing billion, eclipsing the parallel funding of fission. It is now focus for the next two, is to help bring fusion from the attracting such VIP investors and high-tech visionaries as lab to the beginnings of advanced design and future Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Reid Hoffman, Michael Bloomberg, commercial development—initially, by designing a Richard Branson, Ray Dalio, Dustin Moskovitz, and Sam reactor able to produce more energy than it consumes. Altman. Even major investors in the oil industry recently placed a big bet on fusion. To do this, we’re: • Convening monthly with interested NGOs, while This indeed portends a paradigm shift, with most of the continuing to host workshops, connect with multiple action happening in the United States. CATF’s role is developers, and meet with key government officials, to seize the moment, helping weave together players, including fusion research directors at national labs; conversations, and concepts so that in the near term these key areas can be optimally aligned: • With several NGOs and utility partners as well as the fusion industry, developing a federal policy roadmap • Research and development priorities; to grow fusion as a green energy source;

• Assessment of commercial viability and timeline; • Carefully assessing potential institutional and supply chain constraints to identify public policy actions • Market analysis of opportunities for and barriers to that will remove these hurdles and expedite future commercialization; and commercial fusion deployment; • Sound approaches to regulation, safety, and the • Broadening target audience awareness of fusion’s potential for proliferation. increasing significance, particularly its long-term climate benefits; and

Cultivating the Landscape of New Fusion • Advocating for more public support directed to In the fusion space, CATF plays to its strengths, commercial development of fusion power. serving as an experienced matchmaker. For example, we are nurturing and attempting to expand private investors’ gathering interest in fusion, evidenced by recent fusion start-ups and high-powered alliances like Breakthrough Energy.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 42 SECTION 04 At a Glance

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 43 04 – AT A GLANCE Fundraising

CATF’s Big Vision Propelled by New Donors

CATF’s mission has long been advanced by our 2020 surge in contributions from individual donors generous donors, including foundations and family funds. In 2020 some of our biggest heroes $6M were the individuals whose enhanced giving at $5M all levels helped drive CATF’s unprecedented growth and create bold opportunity. We added $4M 15 new staff, enhanced our development and communications capacity, and launched a major $3M presence in Europe, while elevating our voice on a global stage. We’re grateful, encouraged, and $2M ambitious about what’s to come. $1M Thanks to all our supporters, CATF is closing in on our most ambitious goal—to decarbonize 0 the global energy system and permanently Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4 stabilize our climate. 2018 2019 2020

2020: Your Support at Work We have been consistently impressed by CATF's

Program transparency and honesty in (82%)

General, our dealings with them. Admin & Fundraising (18%) Founders Pledge: Charity Reports

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 44 04 – AT A GLANCE Endorsements and Partners

Endorsements

CATF has received the highest possible rating from Charity Navigator and a 2020 Gold Seal of Transparency from Guidestar, and has been endorsed as a highly effective organization by Founders Pledge and Giving Green.

Fundraising Partners

Centre for Effective Altruism – US, UK, Netherlands Giving What We Can

The Crowd – United Kingdom GivingMultiplier

Double Up Drive High Impact Athletes

Effective Altruism Foundation – Switzerland legacies.now – Germany

Effektiv Spenden – Germany Rethink Charity Forward – Canada

Founders Pledge

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 45 04 – AT A GLANCE CATF in the News

CATF continues to be lauded for our work across the globe and is seen as a highly effective organization and leader in the climate change solution space. We are proud of the many articles written about our work in the past year. A few examples:

The Atlantic – December 1, 2020 Rolling Stone – October 27, 2020 The Weekly Planet: The Best Way to Donate to Another Reason We Can’t Breathe → Fight Climate Change (Probably) →

Vox – September 17, 2020 New York Times – June 24, 2020 Want to fight climate change effectively? Here’s Projects to Stash Carbon Dioxide Underground where to donate your money → Get a Boost →

New York Times – January 29, 2020 NPR – March 6, 2020 One Thing You Can Do: Make Smart Donations → Resources On Climate Change →

CATF’s deep technology and policy expertise makes them a great partner for advancing climate change solutions in our region.

John Nielsen Energy Program Director, Western Resource Advocates

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 46 Board of Directors

Armond Cohen Seema Paul Executive Director, Clean Air Task Force, Managing Director, The Nature Boston, MA Conservancy, Washington, DC

Phil Giudice Bruce Phillips Board Member, Ambri, Marlborough, MA Director and Co-Founder, The Northbridge Group, Concord, MA

Jane C.S. Long Fellow, Center for Global Security Sue Sheridan Research Principal Associate Director President and Chief Counsel, Coalition for at Large Lawrence Livermore National Fair Transmission Policy, Washington, DC Laboratory, Livermore, CA

In Memoriam – CATF Board Chair Wendy Jacobs

On February 1, 2021, Wendy Jacobs, the Chair of CATF’s Board of Directors, died after a valiant struggle with an illness. Wendy joined CATF’s Board in 2016, and become our board Chair in 2018. Wendy first became associated with CATF through her position as the Emmett Clinical Professor of Environmental Law and Harvard Law School and Director of the school’s Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic, where she had a long and fruitful relationship with CATF. She will be sorely missed.

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 47 CATF Experts

Leslie Abrahams Ashley Korn Brett Rampal Director, Energy Systems Analysis, Operations Director, Boston, MA Director, Nuclear Innovation, Washington, DC Charlotte, NC Julie Lanza Jonathan Banks Director, Foundation Giving, Stuart Ross International Director, Super Boston, MA Communications Director, Pollutants, Brunswick, ME Jamestown, RI Carlos Leipner Lee Beck Director, Global Nuclear Energy Conrad Schneider CCUS Policy Innovation Director, Strategy, Miami, FL / Advocacy Director, Brunswick, ME Washington, DC Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Darin Schroeder Stephanie Bewley Joana Leitao Attorney, Ithaca, NY Controller, Flagstaff, AZ Scientist, Berlin, Germany Sarah Smith Joe Chaisson Naomi Leonard Program Director, Super Pollutants, Research and Technical Director, Administrative Assistant, Portsmouth, NH Brunswick, ME Boston, MA Amanda Storm Schuster Armond Cohen Chloe Lesieur Director, Donor Impact, Executive Director, Boston, MA Senior Development Coordinator, Minneapolis, MN Boston, MA Jay Duffy S. Ming Sung Attorney, Boston, MA Jonathan Lewis Senior Advisor, Asia Pacific, Senior Counsel, Boston, MA Houston, TX / Beijing, China Rowan Emslie Communications Director, Alan Masinter John Thompson Europe – Brussels, Belgium Legal Fellow, Boston, MA Technology and Markets Director, Carbondale, IL Lesley Fleischman David McCabe Senior Analyst, San Francisco, CA Senior Scientist, Takoma Park, MD James Turitto Campaign Manager, Super Pollutants, Mike Fowler Kay McConagha Berlin, Germany Director, Advanced Energy Chief Financial Officer, Lyons, CO Technology Research, Boston, MA Alessia Virone Alfredo Miranda-Gonzalez Government Affairs Officer, Alec Giffen Technical and Policy Analyst Europe – Brussels, Belgium Senior Science and Policy Fellow, Trondheim, Norway Brunswick, ME Thomas Walker David Mohler Senior Fellow, Transportation John Graham Senior Advisor, Advanced Technology, Technology, Boston, MA Senior Scientist, San Francisco, CA Raleigh, NC Kurt Waltzer Lindsey Griffith Deepika Nagabhushan Managing Director, Columbus, OH Federal Policy Director, Program Director, Decarbonized Washington, DC Fossil Energy, San Francisco, CA Ann Weeks Senior Counsel and Legal Director, Hayden Hashimoto Andrew Place Boston, MA Legal Fellow, Boston, MA Director, State Energy and Climate Policy, Pittsburgh, PA Bruce Hill Chief Geoscientist, Gorham, NH

CATF 2020 Report: A Year of Global Impact | 48 For individual donation inquiries please contact Amanda Storm Schuster, Director of Donor Impact at [email protected]

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